


Lover to Lover

by shannonymous



Series: New Again [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Coming Out, FTM, M/M, Misgendering, Protective Steve Rogers, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Trans Character, alcoholism!, like for a second, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannonymous/pseuds/shannonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony comes out to his boyfriends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lover to Lover

**Author's Note:**

> literally there is no plot and I'm so sorry and honestly I don't know why I wrote this but

The silence is heavy between them; the restaurant is crowded, busy on a Saturday afternoon, and no one is paying attention to the three men sitting in the back of the joint. It gives them the advantage and illusion of privacy. Tony would appreciate this if his heart wasn’t racing, fluttering wildly in its cage beneath his chest. He swallows the last sip of whiskey and resigns to wait for another because _"Tony, you can’t just snap at the waitress-“_

_“Server.”_

_“Server, right. You can’t snap at them.”_

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Steve asks. Tony makes the mistake of looking up from his empty glass and out of his memory, but immediately regrets it. The concern etched into Steve’s features makes Tony sick; he’s never wanted to be so different in so many ways, and he certainly doesn’t want pity.

He almost forgets what they’re talking about. _Ah, right. You were telling them._

And yet his self-deprecating mouth has a mind of its own, because he doesn’t even catch himself when he says, “Well, when playboy billionaire has an asterisk next to it and all of your hookups have to sign non-disclosure agreements on their way into the bedroom, it just becomes habit to hide.”

Of course, Steve’s face falls but it doesn’t soften. His pity turns hard, eyes cold and mouth set.

“You shouldn’t have to hide.”

Tony laughs into his wineglass. The star-spangled man with a plan who doesn’t speak before he thinks.

“Of course I did,” he says. “Times may have changed, but people don’t. I came out a long time ago—my father made me, yknow. He said he’d out me if I didn’t do it myself.” Tony ignores the surprised disgust on Steve’s face (the look that always creeps up without him knowing, never prepared to hear how terrible Howard had really been) and continues: “Said it’d make me change my mind. It wasn’t as bad as he wanted it, I think. But bad enough. I—“

Sick nostalgia rises in his chest. He imagines all of the times he woke up in the hospital with little souvenirs (some lasting longer than others; the rope burn around his throat burned for only a week, while to this day the smell of charcoal has his stomach twisting up ugly and tight).  
He isn’t ready to tell them about that. ‘Unstable’ is enough baggage to put on the table for now.

“Tony?” Steve prompts gently and Tony starts with the realization that he’d retreated into his head.

It’s the only place he has left, sometimes.

“Sorry,” he smiles, but it feels hollow (he can tell from Steve’s unwavering concern that it looks exactly like it feels stretched on his face), “What was I rambling?”

“About you bein’ a dame and keepin’ it from us,” Bucky cuts in for the first time since Tony had finished his drink, ordered another, and declared: _“We need to talk.”_

Anger swells hot and quick (Tony’s always had a temper), but he isn’t the one snapping out in a warning tone: “ _Barnes_.”

“What?” Bucky rolls his shoulder in a manner that looks to be discomfort (it’s deflection, they both know him well enough by now to see it in the tightness of his frame and the hard clench of his jaw) as he huffs out, “Seems like something you oughta let your fellas know about.”

“Maybe he wasn’t ready,” Steve says, his voice low through gritted teeth.

He does this with a minute shake of his head, as if telling his team to end it.

Tony doesn’t much like the way Steve’s cold soothes the heat in his chest and the flush on the back of his neck creeping up from the collar of his shirt. Where Tony’s anger is heat, bright and blinding and all-consuming, Steve’s is cold and distant, almost cruel.

Bucky’s is hidden, buried deep in places where Tony’s heat will not melt it away and Steve cannot soothe it cold. It twists seeking vines around the bars of his ribcage, settling into the cracks of his very foundation, while it smothers and silences the hard beating of his heart. They spread greedily under the surface of his skin, rooting in the flesh and blood and bone (and regret, because this is where he carries it the heaviest).

He rolls his shoulder again: “That’s a lousy fuckin' excuse and you know it.”

For a moment, Steve is so taken aback by this man he’s known twice over that he can’t speak.

Bucky takes this chance to say, “Ready isn’t half of it. He’s afraid. Fuck.” The vines creep up into his throat, and if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, they’ll spill out, wild and unbidden—but he can’t stop now. “He’s afraid of us.”

“No-“

Steve’s sharp glance cuts over to Tony, whose hands are open in placation, palms reaching for their understanding, but his _eyes_ \--

He swallows hard.

“Is that true?”

The vines tighten; his ribs creak under the pressure.

“I get it,” Bucky mutters. “Some things you get to keep for yourself. I ain’t saying that you had to tell us—you.”

He shakes his head, at a loss for words but abandoning his search for something better to say, _anything that won't hurt as much as--_ “You didn’t trust us. “

“We’re in this together,” Steve cuts in, that stupid, open look of understanding crossing his face.

Tony laughs, short and deprecating, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“I’m in this body alone,” Tony smiles wryly (the smile they’re used to seeing, his default and his defense). The weight of their stare is overwhelming; his face flushes hotly before them. “So this _is_ mine. _My_ problem. Not yours.”

Steve says, “You aren’t alone in this, Tony!” at the same time Bucky huffs out a protesting, “It isn’t a problem.”

The heat crackles in his lower belly.

“You don’t get it,” he says.

“We’ll never really get it,” Steve offers, soft. “But we’re here. This ain’t gonna change anything… you know that, right?”

They both watch the tension bleed from the man in measures of hitching breaths; Steve’s hand is suddenly a heavy weight on his back, cool fingers soothing the heat from the nape of his neck. He leans into it, looking not at them, but all the places in between.

“Well, maybe,” Bucky grins something easy, “we _are_ gonna start foolin’ around soon, right?”

Steve shoots him a dirty look because _we almost fixed it, you ass_ but to (only) his surprise, Tony barks out a relieved laugh and smiles at Bucky.

“Are you saying Captain America isn’t enough for you, Barnes?”

The grin doesn’t waver: “I’m sayin’ Iron Man is a hot piece of ass and I’d like to get to know ‘im personally.”

Steve’s hand squeezes at Tony’s neck as he smiles in a way reserved for scared children and damsels in distress. It’s the smile he uses to pretend he could never be a threat. “We don’t have to rush into anything,” he assures himself more than the other two at the table; Tony grins warmly at Bucky, before _leering_ at Steve and leaning to tangle his fingers in all that blonde hair. The kiss he pulls the man into is chaste but a promise, and Steve’s own cheeks heat with a blush (it’s the sweet things that really get him going).

Tony laughs when he pulls away and pulls out money to pay their tab. “Ever gone home with a billionaire?”

“Tryin’ to,” Bucky answers, standing.

As they leave the dive bar, he slings an arm around Tony who snaps his fingers at the waitress-- _server_ \-- before leaving a bill on the table: “Hey! For you, don’t let anyone take it.”

He pauses. “And next time, keep the drinks coming.”

Their server (whose name they didn't catch and didn't come by the table often enough for them to learn) looks suitably surprised at the tip left behind: “Y’all looked so busy I didn’t want to interrupt. It seemed very… emotional.”

“Doll,” Bucky says as he holds the door open for his boyfriends, because he’s a true gentleman and true gentlemen get laid by billionaires and super soldiers, “That’s when we need ‘em the most.”


End file.
